Senators seek long-term solution

A large group of Senate Republicans is approaching influential Senate Democrats in an attempt to find a bipartisan, longer-term solution to the shutdown and debt ceiling logjam.

The Republicans are floating various proposals based off the rough framework provided by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) earlier this week. The discussions were described as “free-flowing,” by one source familiar with them, and include senators on a wide ideological spectrum.

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Boehner proposes temporary hike

Jim VandeHei analysis

Facilitated on the Democratic side by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the talks have been anchored by a group of deal-making Republicans like Collins, and Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have also talked with frustrated Republicans.

The GOP proposals focus on a longer-term solution than anything being considered in the GOP-controlled House, where Speaker John Boehner is pushing a six-week debt ceiling increase before opening the government. Ideas being exchanged include a one-year extension of government funding at sequestration levels with more agency spending flexibility, a long-term debt limit increase of more than a year and a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax, changes to the Independent Payment Advisory Board and income means testing for Obamacare subsidies.

There is growing appetite for the Senate to forge a solution more comprehensive than the short-term, clean debt increase that House Republicans are pursuing.

“The Senate should act, okay? Then we try to coordinate with the House, but the Senate should act,” McCain said. “For the first time there seems to be some real movement.”

The Senate framework is different than the House proposal, which would still leave government shuttered. Senate Republicans have panned the House measure as too short and too narrow.

Taken together, the House and Senate developments constitute actual movement in a stubborn stalemate that had enveloped Washington to this point. Just Tuesday, Boehner declared it would be “unconditional surrender” for Republicans if they ceded to President Barack Obama’s position that there be no negotiation before the government is reopened and the debt ceiling is hiked.

“The government’s still shut down and that needs to be addressed. I’d like to see a solution to both problems, the debt ceiling with a responsible plan to pay down the debt and I’d like to see a plan that will reopen the government,” said Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I really don’t think postponing both of these for six weeks is a good idea, because we’re just back in the same soup we’re in now.”

Collins told POLITICO on Thursday that she’s been tasked by GOP leaders to gauge support on a two-pronged plan to solve the dual crises currently consuming Capitol Hill. Ironically, the Collins plan would actually make some changes to Obamacare in a way that the House bill, which was pitched at a closed-door conference meeting Thursday morning, would not. One option could be Senate amendments to the House’s debt ceiling plan to provide a broader agreement, several GOP senators said.

“My staff is drafting legislative pieces, but they’re doing so in terms of several different options to try to figure out what we can put together that would have the most support,” Collins said in an interview. She said GOP leaders “have encouraged me to go forward and proceed.”

Now, the White House says it is “happy cooler heads seem to be prevailing in the House.”

The two parties are now talking where once there was total silence. House leaders met on Wednesday for a rare meeting, though not much seemed to come out of it, while Obama has summoned lawmakers to the White House for a series of meetings. Senate Democrats and House Republicans will meet there on Thursday, while Senate Republicans are going on Friday morning.